The Most Recent Package
by Wind-in-the-Sage
Summary: London has a few questions to ask the most recent package Stalag 13 has sent them. Mainly, why him? Hogan would like to know too. Also to partially answer the question of what happens to all those guards on duty when the heroes sabotage their charges.


A/N: Please excuse the lack of punctuation. It's a stylistic experiment. (I get a little too creative sometimes.)

* * *

Andrew J. Carter. So that's his name. Yes, I know him. Saw him a few times. We were on opposite sides of the war. I was in Germany, guarding transports and special operations, R&D, you know. He must have been in Germany too. The first time, I can't believe he let me go. After he nearly killed me, that is.

~~HH~~

You have to take him out. We don't have any other options.

But—

You 'ave to do it, or we're all dead. Go.

Okay...

I couldn't escape. I was stuck. I'd left my rifle outside running into the guardhouse to call for help. I'd forgotten to replace my knife that morning while I was sharpening it. They'd taken my handgun. I was defenseless. And the phone didn't even work. They'd cut the line.

He appeared in the opening, gun drawn. He saw me, probably cowering against the wall. I looked up from the picture of my wife into his eyes. There was something there in that look we shared. I still can't put it into words. Whatever it was, it caused him to replace his gun. Slowly. He held his hands up placatingly, looked behind him, then stepped into the guardhouse. They're so small, the ones along the roads, you see, he was almost on top of me. But we neither of us attacked.

I'll let you live, he started. If-if you don't tell anyone you saw us.

I didn't say anything. What do you say to that? I may have nodded—I'm not sure—but it caused him to look back out, and then pull his gun and shoot into the ground. He ran away.

~~HH~~

I didn't tell anyone. He'd saved my life.

The second time I saw him we only made eye contact. I don't remember much of that night, but I do remember seeing him again. I'm afraid to say I did try to catch him that time. I was on guard at a munitions dump. Walking along the fence, I saw the wire had been cut. I raised the alarm and ran through the paths between the stacks of explosive material. I was the first one to see a form in black a good distance away, running toward the outside. I made chase. Then the man met up with another. The second person looked at me. It was the same man I'd seen a month ago. I recognized the bright, youthful eyes. They flashed with recognition and fear. He changed their course. Though I faltered at seeing him, I continued to chase them. When they got to the edge, they had to cut a new spot in the wire.

I don't remember anything after that, except a lot of noise and light. I woke up in a hospital, informed that the place I'd been guarding had exploded. I was one of the few survivors. The only survivor that had actually been in the compound and not in the guardhouse. I had days to think as I recovered from burns and a few broken bones, and I realized why they had to cut a new hole in the wire instead of using the old one. He was drawing me off so I wouldn't be at the heart of the explosion.

~~HH~~

I'm not sure about the third time. Maybe the injuries were doing funny things to my head, but I thought I saw him, in civilian's clothes, visiting someone at the hospital. He looked into my room, then continued down the hall. Maybe it was a civilian, though. With a familiar hat.

~~HH~~

After my recovery, I was demoted and moved to a position at an airfield, checking papers at the gates. I never thought I'd see him again. Then, three months later, a truck came in the middle of the night. They didn't have the password. My fellow guard asked for orders instead. I was too busy staring at the driver. He responded to his officer in the worst German I'd ever heard. Now, I can't help but wonder if that was purposeful.

When we came out from the gates, they had guns trained on us. A lot of them. We were restrained, we heard explosions, we saw several of the saboteurs run back to the truck. The driver, the man I recognized, told me, right before he joined all the others in the truck: Hammelberg hofbrau, August fifteenth, 2000 hours.

That was the last time I saw him.

~~HH~~

I was at the hofbrau in Hammelberg at eight o'clock the night of the fifteenth. After the sabotage at the airfield, my transfer to the Russian front was nearly done processing. In between posts for the time being, I was able to make the appointment, or whatever it was. The trap.

In any case, there was a vast misunderstanding, and there were Gestapo involved and they led me out to a truck. Halfway there to wherever we were going, they dropped the German, spoke English, and told me what was going to happen. I was to be transported from a camp to the Underground, and sent on from there to London. That's what happened. The sort of operation that I saw, tunnels under a prisoner of war camp, connections with the Underground, it looked like what I'd seen that man—Carter, I suppose—doing. It looked like something he'd be a part of. I looked for him all along the route, from the back of that truck to London, but I didn't see him. And then I ended up at this prison camp, out of the war, safe. No one told me why I of all Germans, a simple guard, was sent to London. It seemed a lot of trouble. Perhaps I'd seen too much. But I didn't tell anyone about what I saw, and I was about to be sent to my death anyway.

~~HH~~

Why didn't you report? Were you a sympathizer?

No, I was a proper soldier. I had never hesitated to bring down the enemy before. I'd caught plenty of saboteurs and spies.

And you, for no reason, decided to spare that man the first time you saw him?

No, you don't understand. You don't understand... I could have sworn he was my kid brother. The lieutenant that deserted. I don't know, though. Maybe it was just a grieving mind. My family had died, Allied bombing, just before I saw Carter for the first time. They could have looked similar and my mind just made them the same.

With the potentiality of your escape, we can't tell you anything—

I understand.

—but thank you for sharing with us. I'll be a moment.

The door closed behind him, and the prisoner waited at the table, shifting his chains. Then he fell silent. He was good at being silent. Through the walls, he could make out the loud voice of someone trying to communicate through a poor radio connection.

Mama Bear, do you read? Yes, we spoke to the most recent package. Tell Goldilocks to ask Sergeant Carter if he made the arrangements because of an older brother. Yes that's it. Signing off.

He wished he would be able to hear the response to that message.

* * *

A/N: The last time he saw Carter was inspired by the episode "Some of Their Planes are Missing."

So yes, an AU possibility for Carter. You decide whether he was just being nice or if he really is from Germany.

And because it's a strange and uncomfortable occurrence when the heroes have to directly kill someone—something I don't like to write—here is the explanation Newkirk had absolutely no time to give Carter in the first scene: "It's two of us. We're too far from camp, we still 'ave things to do tonight. If we knock 'im out, 'e'll wake up and warn someone and they'll know where we're gonna be. I don' 'ave anything to bind him with, do you?"


End file.
